HYDERABAD: A little girl called Mary seemed quite lost and was perpetually cranky. The teachers tried their best to interpret her behaviour, but they couldn’t make her speak out what was bothering her. Soon, they informed her parents. However, her parents thought it was ideal to intervene and take her to a child psychologist to learn about her lack of responsiveness and the cause for it. Sooner or later, Mary overcame all her issues and became a happy kid all over again. Mary had a little dog and he too had some mood swing issues. But Mary’s parents thought he was a bad dog. The moral of the story is just like how we humans have mental disturbances, mood swings and madness, our four legged family member too have them all.
Sunanda, founder of Little Pet Paradise and an internationally certified pet groomer and behaviour transformation specialist, throws some light on how our pets too have different emotions and moods and how the master should deal with it. “Just like human beings, dogs have diffident kinds of expressions and mood swings except for long lasting hatred and jealousy. When their behaviour is misinterpreted, there is miscommunication which results in further agitation. Cats are more independent and have a strong personality which cannot be changed or trained unlike dogs. I call it ‘cattitude.’ The only way to deal with them is to oblige and do what they want us to do,” she adds.
Says Sunanda, “First, we should understand that whatever name we give to the relationship (son, daughter, brother, sister) between the dog and human; we should not forget they are originated as a wild animal, domesticated by us, and we cannot kill that wild instinct. Most important thing we should all know, is that no dog understands human language, though they do sometimes convince us that they understand but it is only fictitious. They can sense our emotion (fear , happiness, sadness, anger) tone and a few words.
For example, excessive barking- the myth is when a dog starts barking unnecessarily, we should try to stop by yelling or talking to the dog, or calling it’s name loudly. The truth is dogs are pack animals and in the wild, when one dog starts to bark in a pack, the others other join in barking. So in the aforementioned situation, where a human starts shouting to make the dog stop barking is misinterpreted by the dog as his pack encouraging him for barking. He will get even more excited and bark louder.”
Coming back home to our dog jumping on us with excitement rejuvenates our mood instantly but there is something more to it. Wondering what? “When the dogs jump on master or visitor, we respond by saying “It’s okay! No! Stop it! Good boy/girl and his/her name. The dog doesn’t stop. It is because using too many different words and commands will confuse the dog and in turn aggravate the behaviour.
It is the fault of the human who does not set the rules for the canine right and stick to them from the puppy hood. When they were a puppy, he/she is encouraged to jump, by patting and giving love. Once he/she grows bigger, we change our mind and don’t want our dog to jump on us, which confuses him/her. They cannot relate to the words said to them to the behaviour expected,” Sunanda, trained by Marcellus Benjamin shares.
Sunanda advises that the most effective art of communication with any animal is to be silent and relaxed, study their body language and reciprocate accordingly.A dog with a wagging tail is friendly is a myth. In reality, any kind of excitement can cause its tail to wag. And the level at which the tail is wagging denotes a different mood. “If the tail is held slightly below the body level and wagging wide means he/she is being friendly. If they are wagging horizontally and slowly, it means they are unsure. Higher than body line wagging stiffly is an aggressive dog,” she educates.
“One should remember that every dog has its own character, so before you train your dog, you need to monitor and understand him. You need to decide on day one, if you are going to be the master or let him be the master. Mind you, roles once decided cannot be reversed,” she adds. A simple way to understand that we have severe communication gap with our pet is when he has behavior issues, like excessive barking, pulling on the leash, destructive behaviour, biting and aggression. “Just like every child needs proper schooling, even though you can teach them to read and write at home, every pup needs professional training in addition to the in house lessons which bridges the communication gap between the pet and pet parent,” the dog behaviour specialist suggests.
Mostly people parenting small and expensive breeds like Pomeranian, Maltese, treat them with extreme caution. They are not allowed to socialise with other pets, carried all the time in expensive pet carriers and pet strollers, stealing them of the fun of sniffing and walking. These in turn become extremely snappy and aggressive dominating the parents too. They forget their identity and assume themselves to be a human. They do not interact with any other dog but is only friendly with humans.
Have you observed, our pet gets aggressive when he/she is taken to the vet. They even tend to bite to vet and the master in anger. In such situation, the behaviour specialist says one should not sedate the dog or cat for grooming/ calming or any other reason until unless there is no other way. They tend to get worse after recovery. “Do not go by the tutorials online until unless it is a trusted source,” she affirms.
“There is a myth that cats can be trained but the truth is they do as they please and are extremely unpredictable. They can only be trained in littering process,” she concludes.
purnima@newindianexpress.com @iyer_purnima